A Simple Handbook

for Achieving
Maximum
at Work
Klli Koort
weekdone.com
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The Ultimate Guide for Making Time for the Work That Matters
weekdone.com
Copyright 2014 Weekdone, LLC
All Rights Reserved
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Table of Contents
Eisenhower Principles of Productivity 4
Quadrant #1: Urgent and Important 5
Quadrant #2: Urgent but Not Important 5
Quadrant #3: Not Urgent but Important 5
Quadrant #4: Not Urgent and Not Important 5
Finding time for tasks that really matter 6
Limit the number of your plans 6
Focus hard on one thing only and dont give up until its done 6
List your progress and refect on it at the end of the week 6
If you feel stuck, communicate the problem 7
Say no 7
Plan your next week on Friday 7
Focus on outcomes and results, not on process or actions 7
Share plans with others and let them know what youre working on 7
Divide your week into regular functional area days 8
Dont overload others with information 8
Finally, get the week done 9
Are you ready to fnally get the maximum out of your time? 9
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Eisenhower
Principles of
Productivity
Efciency is doing things
right; Efectiveness is doing
the right things
- Peter Drucker
The biggest challenges we face today
are ofen associated with prioritizing:
How much time should be allocated to one
task?
Which task should be done frst?
Is my activity even connected to the
company goals?
Unfortunately, not enough people
ask these questions on a daily basis.
Employees around the world are
struggling with huge workloads. There
is no doubt that questioning every
single activity takes time and energy.
There is one time management
process that sets out to answer
all of the questions above. This
time management process is the
Eisenhower Matrix, which originates
from Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Did you know? Many historians feel
that Dwight D. Eisenhower was the last
great US President. An extraordinary
military leader and strategist, he served
two low-profle terms during which he
established the lasting US policy on the
mid-east, fathered the US inter-state
highway system, expanded Social Security,
and integrated the military services
and southern universities, among other
accomplishments.
The Matrix is a simple 4-square grid
with axis indicating the task urgency
and importance. You can use this
method for your time planning as
well, preferably as part of a weekly
planning tool, such as Weekdone.com.
To fnd out what you should be doing,
review all your tasks and divide them
among these 4 squares.
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Quadrant #1: Urgent and
Important
Items you could not foresee and those
that have been lef to the last minute.
should be combined here. When
using weekdone.com for your weekly
planning, try to enter the Urgent/
Important plans frst as much as
possible and focus on those.
Plan to handle the unexpected or
reschedule some other item.
Debrief when complete to determine
how you will respond next time.
Quadrant #2: Urgent but Not
Important
Items listed here stop you from getting
your work done. Delegate them or
reschedule them.
Just say NO! or coach people to solve
their own problems.
Quadrant #3: Not Urgent but
Important
Complete the items in Quadrant #3 to
achieve your goals.
Allow enough time to do these things
right, or they will become Urgent.
When planning the week, have also
few Non Urgent /Important tasks in
your weekly status report.
Quadrant #4: Not Urgent and
Not Important
These items are distractions. Ignore
them or drop them. Or, decline the
request. Not everything that can be
done must be done or even planned.
Simplify and declutter your to-do list
by throwing these straight into the
dustbin.
Remember, the Eisenhower
matrix expedites time man-
agement when used daily.
You list all the tasks for your day in
one or another of the boxes. As you
list them in the box, do so by priority.
When fnished, address the Urgent/
Important Tasks immediately
and dismiss the Not Urgent/Not
Important tasks.
If possible, delegate the items in the
Urgent/Not Important box or leave
them for the future, when there are
no more important tasks. The Non
Urgent/Important tasks should be
assigned a completion date, but
they should never take priority over
Urgent/Important tasks.
The key beneft to the Matrix is its
elegance. It lends itself so easily
to accessibility and function. The
template is easy enough to draw and
photocopy and you are able to achieve
the maximum beneft when you use it
along with weekly planning tool.
Afer fguring out what really matters
and which issues need to be addressed,
you need to fnd the time to deal with
these tasks.
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Finding time
for tasks that
really matter
80% of people dont want
to go to work on Monday
mornings.
Two common things they say on
Monday mornings are I have too many
things to do and Theres not enough time
to do it all. If you look at your task list
and have no idea where to start it will
lead to procastination.
There is no reason to get demotivated,
because if you know your priorities
and have created a weekly plan, then
you are already half way there. Here
are 10 best tips to be productive
and enjoy your week. Its all about
achieving more by doing less:
Limit the number of your
plans
Start with weekly planning. Its crucial
to focus on whats important and to
do those selected things really well.
Usually only a few of the dozens of
items on our to-do lists are tied to
big crucial goals and high-impact
objectives.
Its ideal to limit the number of weekly
plans you absolutely have to achieve
to a maximum of 5 per week. Thats
one big hairy goal that you have to
achieve per day, whatever it takes.
Focus hard on one thing only
and dont give up until its
done
Too much choice is bad. Its human
to choose the small and easy-to-
accomplish tasks, not important
strategic ones. Achieving many small
goals gives us an illusion of progress.
At the same time multitasking lowers
IQ by 10 points and kills productivity
by 40%, according to Harvard Business
Review.
If you listed your 5 key goals for the
week, choose the most important one
of them and start working on it. Not
two or three. Just one.
By not having multiple options,
you cant choose the path of least
resistance. Keep grinding until the
plan is accomplished and you can
report it as progress.
List your progress and reflect
on it at the end of the week
Choosing a few key plans for the
week is not easy at frst. What helps is
refection at the end of each week.
Was what you did important and
worth one full week of work?
During the week, whenever something
gets done, dont just delete it or tick it
as done, but write it down as progress.
On Friday, look at your progress list
and study each item. Have you cheated
a bit? Could you have done something
else instead?
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Repeat the process weekly, learn and
iterate. Youll soon get pretty good at
listing your key goals.
If you feel stuck,
communicate the problem
Not everything you plan gets done.
Quite ofen there are external reasons.
Things get stuck or delayed. Dont
procrastinate on things you cant
solve yourself. Ask for help from your
manager, your team mates, advisors
or anyone else.
Companies like Skype have used
the 3-part PPP (progress, plans and
problems) process for their team
communication and planning for
years. Some companies call it ROC:
results, objectives and challenges.
There are other names, but the logic
is the same. You set a goal and it either
gets done in a week or there must
be a serious reason why it did not
move ahead. A plan always becomes a
progress or a problem.
Say no
Be picky. Because something can
be done, does not mean it must be
done. Be mindful of your goals. Take
a minute or two to think whenever
someone asks you to do something or
you start writing something down as
a to-do.
Start saying no to many of the things
and focus only on selected plans.
Leave out unimportant things. Do
only the big things.
Plan your next week on
Friday
Refection each Friday is important.
Planning your next week on Friday
evening before leaving work is even
better. Youll keep your weekend
worry-free and you can start right
away on Monday morning.
Focus on outcomes and
results, not on process or
actions
Looking at our to-do lists, we ofen
write down not measurable results to
be achieved but actions or processes.
Furthermore, quite ofen it is hard to
say if the task has been achieved or
not.
If possible, try to focus on results
instead. This way it will be much easier
to declare a goal accomplished and
move on to next big weekly objective.
Share plans with others and
let them know what youre
working on
In a team environment, always explain
to others, why you have chosen one
goal over another and how your
resources are divided. When your
plans get accomplished, communicate
the progress. Expect the others to do
the same.
Whenever a challenge comes up,
share that as well. It helps both with
getting feedback from others as well
as keeping the team on the same page.
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A weekly paradigm is ofen ideal for
these three not too ofen, like daily
e-mails and not too seldom, like
monthly reports. Use either e-mail,
Google Docs, intranet or a specialized
tool like Weekdone, whatever works
for you.
Divide your week into regular
functional area days
People who have diferent
responsibilities can divide their
week into 5 days of diferent work
areas. Then stick to them each week.
Communicate your days focus to
your co-workers as well.
When Jack Dorsey, co-founder of
Twitter and CEO of Square was doing
80-hour work weeks between the 2
companies, he was very strict about
his daily planning. So he themed his 5
days like this:
Monday: Management meetings
and running the company work
Tuesday: Product development
Wednesday: Marketing, commu-
nications and growth
Thursday: Developers and part-
nerships
Friday: The company and its cul-
ture
Dont overload others with
information
You would not want others to
disturb you and waste your time.
Being interrupted, be it via e-mail
or meetings, is an annoying waste of
time in any team. Be nice to others
and whenever possible, do not e-mail
them, do not call for another meeting.
All in all, you can enjoy your daily
work much more by limiting yourself
to a smaller number of important
goals and executing those really well.
Keep it simple. Declutter. Youll do
more by doing less.
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Finally, get the
week done
1 hour of planning will save
10 hours of doing
No matter what products your
company sells or what kind of services
you provide, at the end of the day,
you need to get things done. The best
chances this happening is to prioritize
your tasks, fnd out which need your
immediate attention and which ones
you need to delegate now. Write
down most crucial plans and work
productively throughout the week.
While you are doing the best you can,
remember the Pareto principle: The
Pareto analysis technique is all about
doing 20 percent of the work with a
direct impact on the 80 percent of the
results.
This is going to help you out,
especially if you are able to complete
the majority of the 20 percent early
on. Youll be amazed as although
you are completing less work during
the week and are less busy, you are
actually fnishing more and able to
move ahead with your weekly work
schedule.
Did you know? Vilfredo Pareto observed
in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy
was owned by 20% of the population; he
developed the principle by observing that
20% of the pea pods in his garden contained
80% of the peas.
So, when you walk into work on
Monday, you need to sit down and
look at everything you need to do
throughout the week. Write all of this
down either in weekdone.com Plans
section or your other favorite task
manager. Then for each task think
what kind of impact it has and move it
to the top of your priority list. You are
going to see some of the smaller tasks
you need to complete are actually
going to have a substantial impact on
some of the longer tasks.
Are you ready to fnally get
the maximum out of your
time?
Keep this handbook near and
come back to it whenever you feel
unproductive or overwhelmed. Stop,
refect and stay positive. Success is
never easy, but it is achievable. Try
out the winning combination of the
Eisenhower matrix, Pareto principle
and the weekly planning tool.
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Ofen we fnd ourselves too
immersed in task management
and productivity applications.
We dont seem to be able to step
back a bit. We need to look at the
bigger picture.
Our mission at Weekdone
is to make you, the user,
understand your data and make
it actionable. We give you a
visual, easy, yet comprehensive
overview of your teams
productivity.
Jri Kaljundi
CEO & Chief Productivity
Ofcer
Weekdone weekly reporting
jk@weekdone.com
Have some questions about weekly
planning? Do not hesitate to send
your feedback, thoughts or questions
to Klli at kylli@weekdone.com and
she will fnd time for you.
You can fnd us at:
weekdone.com
twitter.com/weekdone
facebook.com/weekdone
google.com/+weekdone
To plan your weekly goals and monitor
progress, try out Weekdone. The status
report service is free for individual
use and teams of up to 3 people. For
others theres a 30 days free trial.